Wireless telephones and other wireless devices have become almost the defacto standard for personal and business communications. This has increased the competition between wireless service providers to gain the largest possible market share. As the marketplace becomes saturated, the competition will become even tougher as the competitors fight to attract customers from other wireless service providers.
As part of the competition, it is necessary for each wireless service provider to stay abreast of technological innovations and offer their consumers the latest technology. However, not all consumers are prepared to switch their wireless devices as rapidly as technological innovations might dictate. The reasons for this are varied and may range from issues related to cost to an unwillingness to learn how to use a new device or satisfaction with their existing device.
However, certain technological innovations may require different antenna technologies in order to deliver service to the wireless customer. For example, although Wide-Band Code-Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) and Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) technologies typically operate on different frequencies, and they may require separate antennas, a wireless provider may have customers using both types of technologies. Thus, the wireless provider must have a means to combine different RF signals to allow signal duplexing with different types of technology over the same antennas. Traditional means of RF combining have inherent power degradations due to physical limitations that require connections and RF cabling to interconnect the RF combiner topology.